Though everyday use of the script has largely been supplanted by the Latin alphabet, the Balinese script has significant prevalence in many of the island's traditional ceremonies and is strongly associated with the Hindu religion. The script is mainly used today for copying lontar or palm leaf manuscripts containing religious texts.[2][3]

Contents

Characteristics

There are 47 letters in the Balinese script, each representing a syllable with inherent vowel /a/ or/ə/ at the end of a sentence, which changes depending on the diacritics around the letter. Pure Balinese can be written with 18 consonant letters and 9 vowel letters, while Sanskrit transliteration or loan words from Sanskrit and Old Javanese utilizes the full set. A set of modified letters are also used for writing the Sasak language. Each consonant has a conjunct form called gantungan which nullifies the inherent vowel of the previous syllable.[4][5]

Punctuation includes a comma, period, colon, as well as marks to introduce and end section of a text. Musical notation uses letter-like symbols and diacritical marks in order to indicate metrical information. Text are written left to right without word boundaries (Scriptio continua).[1]

There is also a set of "holy letters" called aksara modre which appears in religious texts and protective talismans. Most of them are constructed using diacritic ulu candra with corresponding characters. A number of additional characters, known to be used inline in text (as opposed to decoratively on drawings), remains under study and those characters are expected to be proposed as Balinese extensions in due course.[1]

Letters

A basic letter in Balinese is called aksara (ᬅᬓ᭄ᬱᬭ), and each letter stands for a syllable with inherent vowel /a/.

Consonants

Consonants are called wianjana (ᬯ᭄ᬬᬦ᭄ᬚᬦ), and there are 33 consonants letters in Balinese, though only 18 called wreṣāstra (ᬯᬺᬱᬵᬲ᭄ᬢ᭄ᬭ) are used for writing the Balinese language. The rest are mainly used for writing Sanskrit and Kawi loanwords.

^1Aksara wreṣāstra. They are, in traditional order: ha na ca ra ka / da ta sa wa la / ma ga ba nga / pa ja ya nya.^2 The consonant ha is sometimes not pronounced. For example, hujan is pronounced ujan.[6]^3 The exact form of ca laca is unknown because only the appended (gantungan) form is left.[7] However, the independent form is included in Unicode.[8]^4alpaprana^5mahaprana^6 Actually an alveolar consonant, but classified as dental by tradition^7 The former of the two letter forms is more frequently used.

Vowels

Vowels, called suara (ᬲ᭄ᬯᬭ), can be written as independent letters when vowels appear in initial position. They are described in the following list:

Gantungan

Adeg-adeg may not used in the middle of a sentence, so gantungan (appended letters) has to be used to kill the vowel of a consonant letter in such case. Each consonant letter has a corresponding gantungan form, and the gantungan eliminates the inherent vowel /a/ of the letter it is appended to. For example, if the letter na is appended with gantungan da, the pronunciation becomes nda.

Gantungan and pangangge (diacritic) can be applied together to a letter. However, attaching two or more gantungan to one letter is forbidden; this condition is known as tumpuk telu (three layers). Adeg-adeg may be used in the middle of a sentence to avoid such situation.[9]

Diacritics

Diacritics (pangangge, pronounced /pəŋaŋɡe/, also known as sandhangan when referring to the Javanese script) are symbols that cannot stand by itself. When they are attached to the independent letters, they affect the pronunciation. The three types of diacritics are pangangge suara, pangangge tengenan (pronounced /t̪əŋənan/) and pangangge aksara.

Pangangge suara

If a consonant letter is embellished with a pangangge suara, its vowel is changed. For example, the letter na with ulu becomes ni; ka with suku becomes ku. The diacritics in this category is summarized in the following list:

Pangangge tengenan

Pangangge tengenan, except adeg-adeg, adds a final consonant to a syllable. It can be used together with pangangge suara. For example, the letter na with bisah becomes nah; ka with suku and surang becomes kur. Adeg-adeg kills the inherent vowel /a/ in the consonant letter. Compared to Devanagari, bisah is analogous to visarga, cecek to anusvara, and adeg-adeg to virama.

Pangangge aksara

Pangangge aksara is appended below consonant letters. Pangangge aksara are the appended (gantungan) forms of the ardhasuara (semivowel) consonants. Guwung macelek is the appended form of the vowel ra repa.

Symbol

Pronunciation

Name

/ra/

Cakra/Guwung

/rə/

Guwung macelek

/ʋa/

Suku kembung

/ja/

Nania

Numerals

Balinese numerals are written in the same manner as Hindu numerals. For example, 25 is written with the Balinese numbers 2 and 5. If the number is written in the middle of a text, carik has to be written before and after the number to differentiate it from the text. Below is an example of how a date is written using Balinese numerals (date: 1 July 1982, location: Bali):

Balinese script

Transliteration

Bali, 1 Juli 1982.

Other symbols

There are some special symbols in the Balinese script. Some of them are punctuation marks, and the others are religious symbols. The symbols are described in the following list: